Photographs from folk festivals around the country by Henry Bourne for Arcadia Britannica: A Modern British Folklore Portrait

Top Left: Jane Wildgoose, Jack-in-the-Green, Hastings, East Sussex

Top Right: Paul Whiting, Red Leicester Morris, Whittlesea Straw Bear festival, Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire

Bottom Left: Peter Paul, Bill, Wagoner, and Simon Lane, ’Orse (Dobbin), Hoodening, St Nicholas-at-Wade, Kent

Bottom Right: Christian Cornell (student), the Straw Bear, Whittlesea Straw Bear festival, Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire

Source: 

http://www.henrybourne.com/arcadia-britannica/

https://www.theguardian.com/global/costume-and-culture/gallery/2015/jun/09/queer-folk-folklore-fantastical-costumes-old-english-festivals

The Singh Twins’ paintings:

Above left to right – Dressed to Kill [Sportlights series] – Untitled [individual] – – – Below left to right – Raining in My Heart (Longing) – Steppin Out With My Baby (My-Donna) [both from The Art of Loving series]

The Singh twins make collaborative work about contemporary socio-political issues informed by their British-Indian heritage

“Their highly decorative, narrative and symbolic work, has been recognised as pioneering a modern revival of Indian miniature painting within contemporary art practice. But their distinctive style is much more eclectic. In addition to the Indian miniature tradition of painting, they also draw on the artistic language and conventions of other traditions, east and west, old and new – including ancient Greek and Roman, Persian and Medieval European manuscripts, The Victorian illustrators and Pre-Raphaelites, Art Nouveau, and photography.”

—> EXHIBITION AT WALKER ART GALLERY, LIVERPOOL until 20th May 2018 I must try and visit (Called Slaves of Fashion)

source: https://www.singhtwins.co.uk/index.html

Top Left: Anadenanthera colubrina (Cebil), 2014-15, pencil & watercolour on paper (part of outsider art series)

Top Right: Caesalpinia sepiaria (Yun-Shihi), 2014-15, pencil & watercolour on paper (part of outsider art series)

Middle Left: Magician + Kuma women ritual dance N E Africa, 2014-15, (part of Shaman Visions series)

Middle Centre: A shamanic healing ceremony in Alaska, 2014-15, (part of Shaman Visions series)

Middle Right: Kamchatka shaman in far eastern Russia with Fly agaric travelling to other realms, 2014-15, (part of Shaman Visions series)

Bottom Left: Rank 3: Microsoft – US – Software & computer services, 2014-15

Bottom Right: Rank 12: Royal Dutch Shell – UK – Oil & gas producers, 2014-15

Source: https://www.suzannetreister.net/HFT_TheGardener/HFT_menu.html

Works by Suzanne Treister as part of several series built around the narrative of a trade banker using/studying hallucinogenic plants to understand the trade algorithms and wider universal algorithms –> read explanation on site

—> creating a detailed/immersive narrative to examine the mechanics of the modern world through shamanistic rituals of the past and present. Plus creating a shamanic narrative all of her own. Plus an alternative mechanism to travel through the veils, portals…

This is a copy of a San rock painting in the Drakensberg Mountains, South Africa.

The image shows a shaman who has fallen to the ground during his trance dance (integral to the journey) as his potency (life force) boils out of him through a hole in the back of his head and he climbs the thread of light to the spirit realm. To do this he’s also used the eland’s potency (very potent/special animals to the San)

The original painting uses the blood of an animal, likely killed for this journey, the painting traps the animal’s potency in the rock. For the San, rocks were the veils and entrances to the spirit world – in many paintings figures would disappear in and out of the cracks and crevices. 

image source: Lewis-Williams, J.D., Blundell, G., Challis, W. & Hampson, J.W. (2000). Threads of Light: Re-examining a motif in southern African rock art. South AfricanArchaeological Bulletin, Vol. 55, pp. 123-136.

info source: Lewis-Williams, J.D. and Challis, S. (2011). Deciphering Ancient Minds, the Mystery ofSan Bushman Rock Art. London: Thames and Hudson.

Some shots of Morehshin Allahyari’s ongoing project ‘She Who Sees the Unknown’ (2017-present) looking at digital colonialism and contemporary forms of oppression allegorical myths and legends from the Middle East.

Top Left: Huma –> djin that brings heat to the human body (global warming)

Top Right: Huma

Middle: historical/archival sources

Bottom: Ya’jooj Ma’jooj – 3D scene –> building a wall between them and humanity (Trump)

Source: http://www.morehshin.com/she-who-sees-the-unknown/

–> the recreation/reincarnation of ‘dark goddesses’ and djins is really interesting to me, especially as she uses 3D printing and video in her storytelling – bringing the old into the new in order to understand our world and its inequalities

Depictions of ‘visards’ which were worn by ladies in the 16th-17th centuries to protect them from the sun. The masks were made of black velvet and were held in place by a button or bead clenched between the teeth, silencing the wearer unless they take it off.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/visard-mask-elizabethan-visor-blank-16th-century

http://www.fashioningtheearlymodern.ac.uk/object-in-focus/visard-mask/

–> interesting concealment of voice/face, therefore persona/identity                  –> effective imagery of the oppressive silence                                                     –> this is such a strange cultural phenomenon, so many women are faceless in art history, that interests me. Lots of people look at it in contemporary art, something to pursue when looking at costume/folklore this term